FOR THE RECORD I DID NOT APPROVE KURTS AVATAR FOR GUYITARHERO5. i think Kurt would despise this game alone let alone this avatar

(All spelling and punctuation in the original.)

On Thursday afternoon, the video game maker Activision, which publishes Guitar Hero 5, said that Ms. Love did approve Mr. Cobain’s appearance in the game.

In a statement, Activision said, “Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.”

The statement added that the musicians Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, who performed with Mr. Cobain in Nirvana, “have no say whatsoever in the usage of Kurt Cobain’s likeness.”

The Associated Press reported that Mr. Grohl and Mr. Novoselic issued their own statement, in which they said that they were “dismayed and very disappointed” that the avatar of Mr. Cobain could be used by players to perform other songs in the game.

“While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character,” they said in the statement. ”This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in ‘re-locking’ Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.”
Update: Keith A. Fink, a lawyer for Courtney Love, told the video game Web site Kotaku that his client was also “extremely upset about Activision’s use of Mr. Cobain’s likeness to sing the songs of others in its Guitar Hero game.” He added: “We would hope Activision would do the right thing on its own and prohibit game users from using Kurt’s image to sing others songs and if they don’t we expect the trust to take appropriate action to protect Mr. Cobain’s image.”

This ongoing trend of reducing classic rock acts to merely a silly game to be played by children and overgrown children is doing irreparable damage to the legacies of those musicians involved. Pointless, half-arsed reunion tours and guest appearances on American and Canadian Idol are bad enough, but getting mixed up in the brainless, lazy world of gaming takes the cake. In the long run, The Beatles will probably not conjure up half the respect and historical acclaim that Spider-man and Ironman will. It’s interesting that in his final interview with Much Music, Kurt Cobain said that one of the last things he wanted was the media turning Nirvana into “cartoon characters”.

God forbid children grow up without having a positively biblical view of popular rock music band The Beatles! Truly, if there was one thing I hope my child would grow up idolizing and understanding it would be a rock and roll band like The Beatles rather than something stupid and cartoonish like a video game or comic book.

Which is to say, Courtney Love is an opportunistic harpy, but we’re also all getting worked up over the public image of a celebrity. It’s disappointing that his widow can make a few bucks off his picture here and there, but he’s not a prophet.

In Utero is a truly great rock album, which means nothing to you if you don’t care about rock albums. Some of us do. He wasn’t a prophet, but he crystallized the feelings of a generation with his words and music. What did you do today?

Come on people. Kurt Cobain – a guy with a deep appreciation for irony, and a self-depreciation soul who had a true sense of humor – is sitting somewhere laughing over the fact that his old lady green-lighted the use of his image in a dumb video game.